Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 223: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

206 REYNOLDS’ WORKS Christoval. Remember the many months that I passed in his society, the delicate attentions that he showed me, the mingled vehemence and pathos with which he urged his suit, and yet I experienced not for him the slightest feeling of love. No, the count, although so handsome, so fascinating, so intellectual, and although surrounded by so many circumstances of a wildly romantic character but too well calculated to make an impression on a susceptible heart, yet he was not the individual destined to ensnare mine.”’ “Then will you never marry, Elizabeth? ”’ asked Frank, bending his ingenuous looks upon his sister. ‘““ Never,’ she at once responded, ‘‘ unless I learn to love tenderly and well. But while thus discoursing, my dear brother,’’ she said, stopping short, ‘‘ we have been wandering to a greater distance than we at first intended. Ah! what is this?” The ejaculation that Elizabeth Paton thus suddenly gave forth was produced by the circumstance of a beautiful carrier-pigeon suddenly descending from the higher regions of the air, and circling three or four times over the spot where she and her brother had halted. The intelligent bird actually appeared to be examining Elizabeth, to assure itself that she was the kind mistress whose hand had been wont to feed it and in whose bosom it had often nestled. Each circle that it made became narrower, and also lower, till, at the expiration of a few moments, it perched upon her shoulder. “Tt is one of my own pigeons,’’ she exclaimed, — “‘ one of those that I sent. back to Kate Marshall.’’ Then, as she took the bird in her hands and began caressing it, she said, “Tt bears a letter. Ah! can I, without a breach of our father’s wishes, read its contents? He evidently desired that I should break off all further correspondence with the Marshalls, and he was right too.” ‘““ Nevertheless,’’? suggested Frank, “‘ there will be no harm in seeing what the billet contains. It may be of im- portance, and there is no necessity for you to answer it, unless circumstances demand a reply.”’ “We will read it,’’ said Elizabeth, and she accordingly proceeded to unfasten the little note from beneath the bird’s wing. The moment this was done, the feathered messenger (Eo) m Gomichbooks Se ee Oe ee